President of Brazilian black college visits US/Presidente de universidade negra brasileira visita EUA

José Vicente, Unipalmares, Barack Obama: We are together

The exchange between Afro-Brazilians and African-Americans has taken another step in the past month. In September, José Vicente, president of the only black university in Brazil and Latin America, Unipalmares, began a tour of the United States. On his trip, Vicente visited Howard University in Washington DC, one of the oldest black universities in the United States. Vicente also participated in the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a yearly meeting thatattracted more than 5,000 people from around the world. The discussion of the Caucus of this year was the importance to the black world of Democratic candidate Barack Obama being elected president of the United States.

Before his trip, the NGO, Afrobras, started a campaign intitled, “Obama we are together” that collected signatures as gestures of support for the senator from Illinois. The campaign sought to collect more 18,000 signatures for the candidate that would become the first black president of the United States. Afrobras is an NGO dedicated to increasing the access of Afro-Brazilians to Brazilian universities. In 2002, Afrobras created Unipalmares, a private university that reserves 50% of its vacancies to Afro-Brazilian students. Today, 87% of the students at Unipalmares are Afro-Brazilian. The complete name of the university is the University of Zumbi of Palmares Citizenship. The university is named after the revolutionary 17th century black leader of the greatest maroon society in the history of Brazil.